A step-by-step guide to improving vaccine uptake in outpatient settings

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Tracking Your Immunization Rate Progress

Find out what type of reporting capability you have to assess your vaccines administered; this can be easily pulled from your billing database, the EMR, or vaccine inventories. Determine the total number of each vaccine doses administered last year and increase these numbers by 20-25% for this year (e.g. 1.25 x number given last year). Plot each vaccine goal on a chart over a given time period.

For example, divide the number of influenza vaccines to be given (goal) by the number of weeks in influenza vaccination season (Sept 1-March 31 = 31 weeks). If the goal were to give 310 vaccines overall, then the point on the weekly goal would be 10 vaccines and the second point on the graph would be 20 vaccines and so on. These points should result in a straight line. From your weekly or bi-weekly report, you can plot the total number of influenza vaccines given on the same graph to indicate your progress. For Tdap or PPSV vaccines, you may want to use a thermometer type picture to show progress. Below are some common examples that can be used to display your progress to staff members.